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Monthly Archives: November 2011

I live in the rainforest, it’s much more romantic to say I live in the rainforest than a place that just rains all day, everyday. . I didn’t care yesterday, I got to eat my favorite meal and watch Christmas movies. I love that most about the holidays, the unwritten rule that you don’t have do anything … there’s really nothing going on to do, so it certainly makes it easy. For a day there’s not that looming voice telling us there’s something we should be doing. Just being, what a concept.

This was a quiet Thanksgiving spent with Rachael & Dan, who are staying here for a few months, it was perfectly delightful. Rachael woke up at 8 to start the bird and we sat down to eat at 1… cake by 3… in bed by 8. Just living up the simple life.

A secret (shall I use the word) domesticated part of me has wanted that at times, to be living that sweet simple life. I certainly seem to get closer to it. But I’m also a hummingbird, and hummingbirds don’t stay still for very long. I’ll save that for a later blog entry.

Sometimes I get cocky with cake, and it’s only because I share enough failures with you to not be truly cocky. I only tell you because I want you taste it, because I know you would love it. You’d end up with frosting all on your face, and I could laugh at you.

Seriously I had issues with this cake. You know how I talk about my search for balance? Well I call it a search because I haven’t figured it out yet. My behavior towards this cake was a little embarrassing; I could not stop eating it. . It was dangerously divine; let’s just say it made me join 24-hour fitness this morning.

Ya know the truth is … I’m not going to give it up, not yet because this sparkle in me knows we can have both, we can have cake and the serenity. We can have cake and the healthy bodies. We can have cake without shame. I’m on the search to find out how; I have a feeling it has to do something with wholeness and self-love no matter what. But we’ll see… Love you.

I’ve been a bad baker.. not like I messed up a cake.. I just haven’t been baking. I’ve been doing yoga, lots of it, entire days of it… yea it’s been a long week .. But I completed a training at a studio here in Portland ! I’m tired last night was my first night to rest and the recycling guy came at 5:30 this morning dropping bottles on my head.I’m almost that close to the garbage cans.. yea, I love how green we are , but can it wait just wait till 8AM ?

I wanted to blog, but I felt a little guilty without any goods to show you. Especially with all this holiday cheer. So , instead I’m going to give you a tiny preview of what’s to come. I’m on it.. for reals.

One of my favorite questions to ask people is ; If it was your last supper ( yes, your very last meal on the planet earth) What would you eat? Seriously I get so excited to hear peoples responses! Tell me yours ..

Okay, MINE : Thanksgiving Supper the whole 9-yards , all of it including the canned cranberry sauce, not whole berried, the jelly! Which I bring myself because it never makes it to the table otherwise. Including desserts, plural, pumpkin pie and some form of pecan something..

Not to be morbid , I don’t plan on this being my last supper. I’m just a little excited. So in my abode my two housemates are doing the food, and I’m baking .. Shocker.

I was thinking of doing three desserts , but I think I’m going to stick to two, because there’s vanilla ice cream and seriously this cake is intense. 1. Good Ol’ Fashion Pumpkin Pie 2. Butterscotch Pecan Cake- 3 layers…

So that’s the dilly-o . Isn’t this table pretty ;

Oh and I’m making this one non- dessert ..

As for Thanksgiving this is about abundance and gratitude.. Yea we got.

I sat next to a lady with her kids today , two boys, at Whole Foods, eating turkey dinners.. It took ages for her to get them settled and eating. Each time she tried to eat, they needed something. I sat there finished with my tofu soup just in awe.. Awe of how little I know.. She had to wait so long to eat herself. How does she do it? be so unselfish?

It made me pray hard, to be less selfish myself, so that someday maybe I can be like this lady.

Then when I got home I prayed again, I prayed for a successful cake… reason?

I had my very first cake sale !

Boy was this a lesson-full day. A friend needed a birthday cake to say some funny little inside joke and somehow show an Romanian flag. I immediately went to this place of needing to do some ace of cakes extravaganza , and how I can’t possibly do this. . and how much I hate writing on cake . . blah blah. . I made a chocolate cake using a new recipe . bad idea . . it was not particually successful. Luckily my mother taught me about freezing stuff. She loves to freeze things; soups, half loaves of bread, cassaroles. My new thing; freezing my cake flops. (AKA my cakes that don’t come out so great) but that I also don’t want to just throw away. Cakes that I will happily mend some day in the future.
So after freezing the first one. I prepared to make another one with an old trusted recipe. Topped it with some buttercream. And then I was stuck . . I didn’t want to use the crappy colored tubes for cake writing , but I was unable to think myself out of this dilema . . and I was displeased with my Romanian m&m flag and my chicken scratch attempt, which I will not post photos of.

Luckily and possibly due to my cake prayers, I had an artistic angel come to my rescue. I love angels in the form of people.

Together we made this cake look a lot better .

So My lesson in all this was; I needed to expand my thinking around this cake. As an artist I need to think outside the box. . I can get an assignment like this, and filter it in a way that works for me and feels creative and fun. This project wound up being fun , once I asked for help and got creative. All it too was some colored paper and paper clips!

I love that movie. . As Good As It Gets. I need to rent it and watch it again, Jack Nicholson is such a doofass and redeems himself over and over. My favorite part is when they walk hand in hand to the bakery super early in the morning. it’s so romantic, it’s so ugh. good…

I have been wondering about this stuff, missing things I’ve lost. Life is funny. Letting go, holding on, moving forward, going back. I’d think if life was pretty, like those perfect cupcake stores on every block that I hate, we would move in this linear line forward. Right? Like every day getting better looking , richer, smarter . . But that is just not the case ! The second I think I know , I have no idea. Maybe this is as good as it gets, or maybe all of that was as good as it got, and maybe it all isn’t actually that bad.

Okay .. so cake talk, I made a healthy one, I know this is strange. . Hold your horses.. But being me I decided since it was healthy, and since I wanted it to look like the inspiring blog I found it on . . I would make it two layers . It turned out to be way too much cake. This was a hearty cake as just one layer. The frosting was interesting and again so healthy so healthy it made me want to meditate after I ate it.. Crazy I know.

So the frosting was a blend of cashews , dates, honey and vanilla beans.. Vanilla beans are beautiful and I reccomend them over vanilla extract any day. Pricey little buggers, but so flavorful. I topped this cake with sliced figs, pretty .

We actually had whole feast with this cake.. My friend Kevin and Randi cooked. .

I like to bake late at night. On nights where there’s no where to be, so I go home put on my pjs and glasses, hook my i-pod up to something sweet, and I bake myself to sleep.

I baked for my hairdresser , yes I have a hairdresser, and she is fabulous ! We barter cake for hair .. it’s a match made in heaven, she makes me look pretty and I indulge her sweet tooth which is very similar to mine. Big.

This cake is a banana bread cake , with chocolate icing and candied salted peanuts. That sweet & salty thing is what’s up people. Let’s not ever let this trend come to an end, okay? Promise me ? It’s just too good to be true.

Tia and I met up for afternoon cake together.

Geneen Roth say’s ” We don’t want to eat hot fudge sundaes, as much as we want our lives to be hot fudge sundaes. “

I can say I have to agree, sort of , but really I want both. But let’s change hot fudge sundae to cake.

If my life doesn’t already feel like cake, the cake isn’t going to help much. That’s a lesson I’m slowly learning. It enriches life , like my new hair do.